In Pre-K, No News Is Good News

When I scheduled our first preschool conference for our third child, my husband had just begun a stressful new job. He couldn’t go, he told me, and since our daughter was typically precocious for a child of her birth order, he was pretty sure she was succeeding at dress-up without having to be told so. You must go, I told him, because it was a new school for us and we wanted to make a good impression.

Pre-K teachers might be just as happy to drop the 'pre-literacy preparedness' jargon as we would be not to have to hear it.

But when we sat down with the director and the head teacher, they both smiled expectantly at us as if we were the ones who had called the meeting. “So … how’s she doing?” my husband asked. “We find,” the head teacher said, “that it’s nice for the parents to tell us how they think their children are doing.”

“She’s … doing very well?” I offered.

“We’re glad to hear that,” the director said, and that is when my husband beat a hasty exit, pretending his BlackBerry was buzzing with a call of utmost importance. “Oh, you can’t leave!” the head teacher called after him, but he did, and I could only wish I were joining him, having learned once again, the hard way, that teacher conferences for a preschooler are usually a waste of time.

I’m not saying preschool conferences are counterproductive; any parent who has that 20 minutes to spare is happy to hear how adorable her child is, or to peruse a selection of that child’s scribblings. Nor am I suggesting discussing preschoolers’ progress with their teachers can never be useful. At our middle child’s pre-kindergarten conference, his teacher surprised us both with stories of our son’s frustration and unhappiness in the classroom. That honest talk led to our holding him back, a decision we feel great about today. But even in that case, I was left frustrated that we had to wait until an arbitrary date nine weeks into the school year to hear that our child was having such difficulty.

Once kids get to elementary school, and begin schoolwork that can be objectively quantified — deductive reasoning, addition, writing one’s name on lined paper — the conference is well worth any parent’s time. My grade-schoolers’ conferences get more interesting and more actionable for me every year. But each year I touch base with their teachers and let them know: I want to help my child succeed in your classroom, and if there’s a problem, please don’t wait for the conference to let me know.

Maybe preschool conferences have to exist. Parents today — especially in urban settings — can spend as much on their children’s finger-painting as they did on their own college educations. But with a typically happy, well-behaved child, there’s just not that much to say, and teachers might be just as happy to drop the “pre-literacy preparedness” jargon as we would be not to have to hear it.

As for our third child: We never scheduled a spring conference.

Both teachers and parents might be better served if preschool conferences were scheduled as soon as, but only when, truly necessary. With a preschooler, no news is good news.